H. P. Mendoza (born March 13, 1977, San Francisco, California) is a Filipino American writer-director, and singer-songwriter based in San Francisco best known as the screenwriter and composer for the film Colma: The Musical. In 2006, he was listed as one of the Top 15 Creative Talents of 2006 by UCLA Asia Pacific Arts. His most recent work, Fruit Fly, premiered on March 15, 2009 at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and is the winner of their Best Narrative Feature Audience Award. Fruit Fly is his directorial debut.

Mendoza was born in San Francisco, the son of Rogelio and Priscilla Mendoza, both from Alcala, Pangasinan, a provincial town in the Philippines. As a child, Mendoza used a Super-8 camera given to him by his father to make an at home roller coaster simulator that would project in the living room and would last for three minutes. The footage was never developed.

Having two older brothers who were forced to take piano lessons against their will, Mendoza was spared the obligation, but was determined to learn to play by ear. He learned his first song at ten years old, the theme song to The Legend of Zelda.

After studying theater and film literature in high school, he studied film at the College of San Mateo where he met future collaborator Richard Wong, director of Colma: The Musical. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.